NEW YORK (Commentary) The most powerful indictment of the news media
for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will
appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called “Buying the
War,” which marks the return of “Bill Moyers Journal.” E&P was
sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media’s role as cheerleaders for the
war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many
fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter
Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by
journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong.
Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media
failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility…

On Wednesday, April 25
at 9 p.m. on PBS, a new PBS series BILL MOYERS JOURNAL premieres at a
special time with “Buying the War,” a 90-minute documentary that
explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq…

…”Buying the War” includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of
CBS; Tim Russert of MEET THE PRESS; Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES; Walter
Isaacson, former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan Landay
and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by
The McClatchy Company in 2006…

…”Buying the War” examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the
war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in
democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what’s changed?
“More and more the media become, I think, common carriers of
administration statements and critics of the administration,” says THE
WASHINGTON POST’s Walter Pincus. “We’ve sort of given up being
independent on our own.”…

They say that the program will be accompanied by “an extensive
companion Web site at pbs.org/moyers where visitors can interact, give
feedback and sign up for the Moyers podcast.”

I am not so much hoping that the general public watches this; what I am
hoping is that every journalist in the USA watches it.

Comments

1. The Iraq mess is really just a more recent, glaring example of the skill with which politicians and their parties have come to manipulate the press to their own agendas.

2. It’s important not to forget the huge nationalistic surge this country had after the 9/11 bombings. This is why you had so many Democrats lining up to vote for war with Iraq, the powers they foolishly gave our Executive branch, the massive outlays of money that we don’t have paid to war profiteers like Halliburton.
Everyone got sucked up into the mindset that, “If you’re not behind us, you’re supporting terrorism”, just like the country was sucked into the Domino theory of Southeast Asia in the 1960s.
Journalists are people too.